In recent years, climate change concerns, reduction in costs, governmental initiatives, and other factors have driven a rapid rise in the adoption of distributed renewable energy generation systems (i.e., systems that generate energy using renewable resources such as solar, wind, fuel cells, geothermal, etc.) at residential and non-residential sites. Solar energy generation systems, in particular, have become very popular due to numerous advantages over other renewable and non-renewable energy sources.
Solar energy generation systems include photovoltaic (PV) modules that generate power from the sun, and can provide the generated power to a utility grid or to one or more onsite loads. Some PV energy generation systems can even store energy from the PV modules and/or utility grid in a battery for future use, such as when the PV modules are not generating power and/or when the AC grid is unavailable.
Such PV systems often comprise numerous components that interact with one another to provide usable power from the sun. These components can be damaged during manufacturing or transportation/distribution, or even be improperly installed, which can result in electrical discontinuities that can immediately cause, or build up over time, a thermal event such as arcing. Arcing is an electrical discharge of current through a normally non-conductive medium (e.g., air). The occurrence of such a thermal event can result in damage to one or more electrical components of the energy generation system if the thermal event is not addressed immediately. Because of the relatively high concentration of individual batteries, high resultant current, and potential for thermal runaway, it is particular important to guard against arc faults in onsite energy storage devices. Consequently, improvements to the mitigation of damage caused by thermal events are needed.